1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a communication apparatus, and more especially relates to a telephone answering apparatus which is able to record messages received from a telephone line on a recording medium.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional telephone answering machine records messages sequentially in the order in which they are received, i.e., all the messages are dealt with as having the same value. Therefore, in the case that a plurality of messages are recorded, an operator cannot discriminate which message is more important before listening to all the messages.
Further, a conventional facsimile apparatus having a telephone answering unit (herein, the term "answering telephone" will, for convenience, be used to denote any device or component which serves to take a call coming over a telephone line and record a message received via the call) has only one controller (Central Processing Unit: CPU) which controls not only facsimile transmission and reception but also voice recording and reproducing of the answering telephone. Therefore, if the controller controls the answering telephone to reproduce a voice message during facsimile communication, the controller discriminates whether an operation key is depressed or not and controls the answering telephone in an interrupting routine.
In a conventional facsimile apparatus having the answering telephone, however, the burden on the controller in executing the interrupting routine during the facsimile communication is too great, and the reliability of the facsimile communication is not as high as might be desired.